


The Boyfriend Book

by heckinamanda



Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mild angst in the middle, it doesn't get super sad I prOMISE, just a bit emotional, otherwise this fic is just supposed to be heartfelt and cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-14 20:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16047548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heckinamanda/pseuds/heckinamanda
Summary: Cyrus’ mom shows TJ a very special photo album.





	The Boyfriend Book

**Author's Note:**

> I uuuuuhhhhhhhhhh really want a scene with tj and cyrus’ parents so I wrote this @terri minsky blease

TJ walked up to the dark brown doors of the Goodman household and knocked. It was a sunny September afternoon. The perfect day for his date with Cyrus.

Leslie Goodman, Cyrus’ mother, answered his knocking. “TJ! I assume you're here for Cyrus?”

“Actually, I can’t stop thinking about the brownies you made last week so I came by for the recipe. Don’t tell Cyrus I was here.” TJ joked, trying his best to use his parent-charm. It seemed to have payed off with the way she laughed.

“Mom! Is that TJ?” Cyrus yelled from up the stairs.

“Yep!” She turned to TJ again. “Come on in, he might be a while.”

He walked inside and started going towards the living room. As he entered he saw pictures of Cyrus framed on walls and shelves. Every time he came over he looked at them. His favorite was the one of a nine year old Cyrus on Halloween, grinning in a dinosaur costume that was a little too big for him.

“Do you want anything while you wait?” Leslie asked. “I just made some peach tea.”

“That sounds great actually, thank you.” He smiled. After she left the room he sat down on the couch, wondering how long Cyrus would be. He was usually ready well before TJ got there.

After a few moments of listening to cups clanking, Leslie came back out holding two glasses of peach tea. “Here you go.”

“Thank you,” he took one. “Dr. Goodman, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” She sat on the other end of the couch.

“When was that photo taken?” He pointed to a photo on the wall of Cyrus. He was wearing gym clothes and giving a thumbs up, but it looked fairly recent.

“Oh, that one was about a year ago. It was the first day he passed gym class,” she smiled fondly at the memory. “Of course I had to capture that.”

TJ smiled too. He knew his part in Cyrus passing that class. “Of course.”

“Do you wanna see more? I know we have a lot of pictures of Cyrus out on display, but I have a whole album full of baby photos.” She seemed excited by this thought, and TJ was too.

Before he even finished nodding she stood up and trotted towards her personal office. She quickly returned, holding a large brown scrapbook with 'CYRUS' stamped on the front in baby blue felt letters.

“This is amazing,” he said as she plopped it in front of him.

“Wait until you see inside.” She opened it up to a photo of Cyrus as a baby, taken the day he was born. She was cradling him on her chest while his Dad sat next to her bedside and held her hand. As he looked around that page, it seemed to all be photos of infant Cyrus.

He could already tell that there were so many photos in this book and each page she flipped through seemed to get a little older, as if they’d been documenting his entire life.

“Oh, his first spelling bee!” She pointed to a photo of him holding a plastic silver medal. “He got second place over the word calculator. He really thought there was an E.”

TJ chuckled from beside her and pointed to another photo. “What’s the story behind this one?”

He was standing next to Andi and Buffy in the snow, each of them covered in it.

“Snowball fight. The first one he had, I think. When he was yelling outside we thought he got hurt but it turned out he was just having fun.” She flipped the page.

“And what’s that one?” He pointed to a photo of a younger Cyrus in a suit.

“That was for his aunts wedding. He just looked too cute for me to not get a picture.” It seemed that was the case for everything Cyrus did, which TJ wholeheartedly agreed with. He has a whole photo album on his phone just of Cyrus.

But in this, there was a photo for every first day of school, even this year. There were photos of him as a baby playing with toys and making silly faces. There were ones of him a little older, going to museums and special events with his family. There were so many photos from his life and TJ loved getting to see them.

“This one is one of my favorites,” she pointed to a photo of Cyrus and Buffy hugging. “That day, they said that they never would speak to each other again. That didn’t even last five minutes.”

TJ laughed. “Why? Were they mad at each other?”

“I can barely remember. I think they were playing with his dinosaurs but Buffy didn’t want to be the mosasaurus.” She chuckled.

“They’ve been best friends for a long time huh?”

“Oh yeah. Andi too. There’s plenty of photos of the three of them in here.” And there were. She flipped through some more pages, stopping to show him ones of the trio.

There were photos of them under forts, trick-or-treating, running around outside, just having fun together no matter what. His personal favorite was one of Buffy and Andi holding Cyrus up. Buffy had his torso while Andi had his legs, and he had his hand over his forehead in a way that said _carry me._

“This is a good one.” She pointed to a recent one of Cyrus at his bar mitzvah. He was standing in the center of everyone while they sang happy birthday to him. He looked really, really happy.

TJ remembers that day and how happy he seemed to be the entire time, admittedly he didn't get to talk to him much. He did help him open a bottle though.

“These are really amazing, thank you so much for showing me.” TJ grinned and flipped to the next page.

“No problem. You know it’s funny, we—we uh,” she paused. Almost as if she were deciding to finish her sentence or not. “We used to call this the girlfriend book.”

TJ felt his throat tighten. He already knew why. “Why’s that?”

“Well,” she paused again, “we thought we’d show all of these to his girlfriend one day.”

He looked at the floor. His heart felt like it was sinking. She doesn’t actually like him. None of his parents do, do they? Of course they don’t, this isn’t what they wanted. _He_ isn’t what they wanted.

“Oh,” was simply all he said.

“But of course that’s different now,” she said quickly. “I don’t think for a second that there is anything wrong with my son, or you, don’t get me wrong. All of his parents support him no matter what, and he knows that.”

TJ held his hands tightly together.

“We just… Weren’t expecting it.”

He nodded. “I understand.”

“TJ, you are such a lovely young man. All Cyrus ever does is talk about you. Even before he came out to me, he talked about you so much,” she remembered fondly. “I kind of knew. I didn’t, because he didn’t tell me, but I had my suspicions when he came home every day smiling and raving about you.”

They laughed lightly together.

“But then he started smiling and raving about _everything,_ ” she started getting tearful as she continued. “Everything he loved and everything he never tried to do before. All because of you.”

“I wouldn’t give myself all the credit,” he smiled. “Your son is amazing on his own.”

“I know. But he didn’t,” a loose tear fell down her cheek. “Thank you, _so_ much for everything you’ve done for him. He’s so different from before you met him. He’s confident now, and outgoing. He is completely proud of who he is and proud enough to share it with the world—with _me._ ”

TJ’s throat started to tighten again, but for a different reason. Before it was fear. Fear of parental rejection, fear of another person telling him he was wrong, fear of losing Cyrus over some unnecessary disapproval. But now, it’s happiness. It’s the tears he's holding back from this. Cyrus means everything to him, and he’s helped TJ way more than he’ll probably ever realize, so the idea that he’s helped Cyrus even half as much in return is validating to say the least.

“If it weren’t for him I wouldn't even be the person I am. Cyrus is so incredible.” He smiled at the thought of him.

They heard said boy start to come down the stairs. “I’m coming!”

She wiped at her eyes while chuckling at herself. “Geez, I’m real sorry about all that. But you should see his other parents, they’re way more emotional than me.”

“It’s not a big deal, Dr. Goodman. I totally understand,” he stood up. “I actually really appreciated our talk.”

And he really did. It was good to know that she liked him, and crazy to know that she wanted to _thank_ him. In TJ’s eyes, Cyrus did all of the work. He made the decisions to step out of his own comfort zone, he just needed a little encouragement.

“Good,” she smiled at him. “And please, call me Leslie.”

Cyrus walked into the living room and beamed at the sight of TJ, who returned that facial expression. He looked so adorable in a white shirt and jeans combo, with a red bomber jacket and shoes.

“I’m trying a new look out—you can tell me if it’s not me, I get it—but I like it right now.” He did a spin around to show himself off.

“You look amazing,” TJ walked over and kissed him on the forehead. “You also looked amazing in all of the photos I saw.”

“The what? Mom?” Cyrus looked at Leslie.

She laughed and held up the photo album. “We might have gone through the boyfriend book.”

TJ instinctively grinned. The _boyfriend_ book.

“ _Mom,_ ” Cyrus whined. “If you saw my spelling bee photo, I promise I know how to spell calculator.”

“I figured,” TJ snorted. “You ready to go?”

Cyrus nodded with blushing cheeks. “I’d love to.”

They locked hands and started to head out the door when Leslie called after them.

“Bye boys, have fun! And TJ—” he turned towards her. “Take care of him.”

He smiled. “Always.”


End file.
